Now we come to the
essential service of the church in relation to the divine
end “That he (Christ) might fill all things”.

We saw that that is the
divine purpose, fixed in eternity, unalterable and
undefeatable. We saw that, alongside of that, the church,
which is the body of Christ, is said to be “the
fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians
1:23). Then we went on to see the method of that
fulfilment, as made so clear in this letter in which the
apostle begins to sum up all that he has said, and head
it up to this sublime issue of the marriage relationship
between Christ and the church. We saw, illustrating from
the Book of Esther, what that marriage relationship
means: divine election, divine redemption, divine
enrichment and adornment, divine covenant. All that was
illustrated in the case of Esther, and there we stopped.

We stopped short of the
next thing — essential service. It is perfectly
evident in that book of divine sovereignty in operation,
for undoubtedly that is the meaning of the book, that
Esther was not just selected, chosen, called to the king,
to the palace, released from the embargo of her exile and
captivity, redeemed, and then adorned with everything
that was essential to make her suitable for the presence
of the king and enriched with his riches for the sake of
Esther herself. It was not just that she might be able to
sport herself in her new position and privileges, and
strut in and out of the palace and show off all that she
had become and with what she had been endowed. The real
meaning of that book, as the sequel shows, is that that
divine sovereignty was in operation in all those ways in
the behalf of a people who had got to be delivered, a
people who had got to come into all the good of that
sovereignty of the throne.

The people were under
threat. They came under an edict from a very evil source
— we may say from very hell itself, as represented
by that Agagite. You have only to mention that name,
Agag, with any knowledge of the Old Testament, and you
will remember the attitude of Samuel toward Agag. He
hewed him in pieces! It is something very evil against
the throne, a hand against the throne and against the
people of God. And here, in this Book of Esther, this
evil thing has come up from the pit, with its design to
destroy the people of God and the testimony of life which
is within them as a vessel. And Mordecai used the
so-familiar phrase about Esther: “Who knoweth
whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time
as this?” Esther 4:14. It was the essential service
of Esther, and when you come to the letter of the
Ephesians, as we have seen, all these features of Esther,
in spiritual expression, are in it. When you come here
you arrive at this: that it is not just for the
church’s own sake, good, benefit, glory and
pleasure. This elect vessel, instrument, is what it is as
elect and foreordained in a much vaster context than
itself, just as the city at the end of the Bible stands
in the midst of the nations to mediate life to the
nations through its tree of life and river of life. It is
only another figure or symbol of a great divine truth.
Right at the heart of things is this elect body, elected,
foreordained, to minister the fulness of Christ within
its own compass and beyond its own compass, now and in
the ages to come.

That is the essential
service of the church. Now, with that service in view,
the apostle is led to bring us to this matter of the
church’s ministry as the way to the end of His
filling all things by means of it: the church as a
ministering instrument or vessel.

That is what is here. It
is the ministry of Christ and of His fulness through the
church, through us, if we are truly in and of that body.
It is our vocation. I do want to emphasise this. I want
you to be quite sure that you get hold of this. All that
is said here about other people functioning is only
within the compass of this — that this is
essentially a ministering church, or it has missed the
way. And that is a tragic missing of the way!

Israel was called in the
Old Testament the wife of the Lord, the bride of the
Lord. “I was a husband unto them, saith the
Lord” (Jeremiah 31:32). Israel was called to be the
ministering channel and instrument of the Lord to all the
nations, and because Israel did not fulfil that high
purpose and vocation but built walls around itself and
shut itself in and became an exclusive body in the
nations, for two thousand years it has been out of the
way. It has missed the way, it has been set aside. It is
in the place of Vashti, who was supplanted by Esther.

When we speak of the
church, don’t let us get beyond the individual
responsibility. There can be no such thing as a church
without the individuals that make it up. Every individual
is a part of that church, that body, and is intended to
be a functioning part. That is the point. Every one of
you without exception is supposed to be contributing
something out of the fulness of Christ beyond yourself to
others. You are in this high and holy calling,
vocation, to be the channel, the vehicle, the mediator,
of something of that fulness. The Lord has made His
provision for others, and, having done so, of course He
expects it to be so.

We have here these
words: “When he ascended on high, he led captivity
captive, and gave gifts unto men...And he gave
some apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists;
and some, pastors and teachers”, and, of course, we
feel their job is to bring the church to fulness. Well,
it doesn’t matter, that is their work, that is their
job, that is their vocation, that is what they are called
for, and we just sit back and listen to what they have to
say, and think: “Well, that was all right, or it was
not so good today...it was pretty good, or it was
very good.” Then we go home and that is the end of
it. No, never! That is a misapprehension of what
is stated here. These gifts, it is stated here, were
given for the perfecting, the making complete of the
saints “unto the work of ministering, unto the
building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain
unto...the fulness of Christ.” These gifts
are only, but essentially, to bring the church into the
place where it can fulfil its ministry. Make no mistake
about that! The ministry belongs to the church. The Lord
has made provision for the church to be helped to fulfil
its ministry by these gifts.

This is a wonderful
statement (in verse 8)! As you know, it is a quotation
from Psalm 68. You recall that psalm! It is the psalm of
the triumphant return of the victorious monarch after his
campaign in which he has overthrown his enemies, has
taken great spoil and has brought back many prisoners. In
his triumph and in the bounty of his gains he is now
generously distributing his gifts to the people in his
kingdom in order that they may come into the good of his
great triumph. That is the picture in Psalm 68, and there
is little doubt, I think, that that psalm has as its
historic background David’s conquest of Zion.

You remember the story.
Zion was held by the Jebusites, and they had manned it
with their weakest, their lame and their blind, because
to their minds it was such an impregnable stronghold that
it did not need anything more than that to defend it.
David threw out his challenge concerning the taking of
the stronghold, inspiring his men to that great work, and
they launched their attack, scaled the height and
overthrew the enemy, subduing every opposing force, and
taking great spoil. David followed up and took over all
these gains, and, although it does not say so, in keeping
with the practice on such occasions, he distributed his
gains to all the people, in order that they might know
what a great leader, conqueror and king he was.

That is the picture
behind Psalm 68. It is a wonderful psalm — you can
read it again.

But now, is it not
remarkable and impressive that the apostle lifts up out
of that mighty psalm these words and transfers the whole
idea to the Lord Jesus? “When he ascended on
high” — and you have to put in there words from
the letter to the Hebrews: “Ye are come unto Mount
Zion” (that seat and centre of His great conquest,
the place where the King dwells) “...the heavenly
Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22) — “he led
captivity captive, and gave...”And why did
He give? For what purpose? That of His fulness, the
fulness of His mighty conquest, His triumphant campaign
the fulness and the good of that, might become the
inheritance of all His people. But that that might be so
there are distributors of the good and the wealth, and
those distributors are named here — “He gave
some apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists;
and some, pastors and teachers.” The object we shall
come to again.

There is another little
illustration, not so perfect or so complete, and perhaps
not in such a good setting, but quite an illustration of
this same thing in the life of this same man, David.
During the time when he was driven out by Saul, hunted in
the wilderness and he went to the land of the
Philistines, he was given for his own possession and
dwelling the town of Ziklag. One day, he having gone out
on one of his raids, the Amalekites raided Ziklag, burned
it with fire, took all its contents, David’s wives
and all the people, and left nothing, going off with the
lot. When David and his men returned and found this
state, they were in great distress. It says they
“lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no
more power to weep” (1 Samuel 30:4). “And David
was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning
him...but David strengthened himself in the Lord
his God” (1 Samuel 30:6). He then called for the
priest to enquire of the Lord whether he should pursue
the Amalekites. The answer was “Pursue: for thou
shalt surely overtake them, and shalt without fail
recover all” (1 Samuel 30:8). So David went off with
his men, pursuing far and long, in fact so far and so
long after a recent campaign that a number of his men
were too faint and too exhausted to go on. So David left
a lot of the stuff there and said: “Well, you sit
here and look after this, and we will go on with this
job.” Leaving them there he went on, and you will
remember they found a half-dead Egyptian. Apparently he
was hardly conscious and was sick, having had no food for
three days and three nights. They generously gave him
food and water and he regained consciousness. He then sat
up and David said to him, “Who are you?” He
replied, “I am an Egyptian, the servant of an
Amalekite. Three days ago we made a raid upon Ziklag, but
I fell sick and my master just left me, to die,
apparently.” David said “Will you bring us down
to the Amalekites? Do you know where they are, which way
they have gone?” The Egyptian said “Swear unto
me by God, that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me
up into the hands of my master” (1 Samuel 30:15).
David did so, and the Egyptian brought him down in the
trail of the Amalekites, and he overtook them. The
Lord’s word was fulfilled utterly. They made their
assault and all but four hundred of the Amalekites were
slain outright. These four hundred escaped on camels, but
it says, “David recovered all” (1 Samuel
30:18). And it seems that he recovered a great deal more
than he had lost! (It is always the way with the Lord
— there is always more at the end than there was at
the beginning when you are moving with the Lord. However,
that is by the way.) David seems to have recovered a
great deal more than he lost, for on the return journey
he came back to the men whom he had left on the way and
was going to give to them of the spoil. Then certain vain
fellows said “No, not at all. They did not go to the
battle. Why should they share the spoil?”
“Ah!” said David, “Not a bit of it.”
“For as his share is that goeth down to the battle,
so shall his share be that tarrieth by the stuff” (1
Samuel 30:24). And David made that a covenant for ever in
Israel.

Then David came back to
Ziklag, and you notice what he did at once? He started
distributing this spoil everywhere. He sent it to Judah
and sent it in all directions. He must have had a real
scoop from the Amalekites! He was giving the gifts of his
mighty victory in all directions. Put it round the other
way. Everywhere within the range of David’s
associations and fellowships they were coming into the
good of his victory. He had led his captivity captive,
brought it back, and was now giving gifts to men.

It is an illustration
which fits right in here with Psalm 68, and with what the
apostle is saying to us. The Lord Jesus has made His raid
— and what a raid! He has come out of a tremendous
campaign against principalities and powers and hosts of
wickedness — the whole mighty range of evil, as we
shall see. But this is the position. He has turned upon
the spoiler and taken the spoil, brought it back, and now
He is saying “All My people must come into the good
of this. They must all of My fulness receive. They must
all come into the blessing of the fulness that is vested
in Me through this conquest. They must be My fulness. My
fulness must be seen in all My people. And unto that,
unto this end, there are various ministries which I
give.” He “gave gifts”, and in the letter
to the Ephesians it is personal gifts. In the letter to
the Romans, as you know, the apostle speaks of prophecy,
and so on — the thing itself, its function. But here
it is the persons in the function.

It is not for us to
spend a lot of time on these various functions, because
that really would take all our time. We need only remark
that the apostle, or the Holy Spirit through the apostle,
begins with apostles, and that is a very significant
thing. When you are in this particular part of the Bible,
though it is a much bigger thing than that, you start at
the standpoint of the universal. You are going to work
inward and finish at some centres, but the apostle is a
universal function. You remember, the Lord Jesus called
the twelve “apostles” and sent them out —
“Go ye into all the world, and preach” (Mark
16:15) “and teach...and act...baptize”.
It is a universal function — preach, teach, act, in
relation to your teaching. This is not local to begin
with. It is the whole range of Christ’s Kingdom.
Apostleship relates to that, and my point at the moment
is that God begins with the universal. Nothing other.
When it comes to the local presently, that must be the
embodiment of all that is universal and the expression of
all that is universal. If it drops on to a lower level,
if it takes a smaller compass, if it becomes something
less, it has missed the divine thought, and you will find
that it will lose its power, and its anointing will be
limited. It becomes something in itself. It starts with
the universal — “he gave some apostles”.
In the other place where he refers to these gifts the
apostle says “First apostles” (1 Corinthians
12:28). That is you and I, and all who are in this church
must first of all be imbued and inspired with the
universal vision and motive. We must be gripped by the
universality of Jesus Christ in this whole world, and
that must be the range of vision and purpose, nothing
less than that. It is something that has got to get hold
of us, to liberate us entirely from all gravitations
towards something less than what Christ is. Christ is so
great that He is to fill all things, to the uttermost
bound, and everything within is to be filled with Him.
And we must have no less a vision, a motive and
inspiration than that to begin with.

“Some
prophets”. That would take some time to explain,
because apparently in the New Testament there was still a
prophetic gift, even in the matter of foretelling. But
taking the prophetic gift at large, it just means this
— those who are anointed to interpret the thoughts
of God to His whole church, who are to bring to His
church and keep before His church all the fulness of His
thoughts concerning the church in itself and its
vocation. A prophet has always fulfilled that function of
calling back the people if they have departed and keeping
faithfully before them what God meant in calling them,
what God’s purpose was in choosing them, what their
ministry and vocation was under the anointing Spirit.
They have that interpreting of God’s thought by
revelation from God. It is very important. These are the
people to whom the Lord has shown something of His mind,
His purpose. They have come to it, not by study, not by
being informed, but by the Holy Spirit. They just cannot
get away from that function. When you meet them and hear
them you will find that they are always on the same line.
All right! So long as it is not the only line! But there
it is, and the prophet is for this purpose — to keep
the thoughts of God in fulness ever fresh before the
people of God.

“Some
evangelists”. Evangelists undoubtedly were the
itinerant messengers for the evangel. They had to preach
the evangel here, there and everywhere. But, again, it is
a sovereign gift. That dispensation has not passed. We
should not say, “Now these gifts were all right for
what we call apostolic times, New Testament times, but
not now.” Well, if we take that position we are
forfeiting something very vital. These gifts, these
personal gifts, ought still to be here in the church
universal. They are sovereign gifts of the risen Lord, to
be recognised, to be accepted, to be accredited, to be
honoured. There are some men, you know, who just cannot
speak and cannot preach without going straight for the
unsaved. That is their very being, their very life, and
if they get on to anything else, the unction goes. The
Lord is with them on that line. There is no doubt about
it. They are given to the church in that capacity, and
they only spoil their own ministry if they try to be
something else. It is as well for us to recognise this.

And then the combined
function — “pastors and teachers”. I like
that combination! It is really shepherds and instructors
in one. You can be a shepherd, rushing round and fussing
about people all the time, trying to make them
comfortable and happy and pleased with themselves, and
snug, and all that sort of thing. That is a shepherd, yes
— but...shepherd and instructor, pastor and
teacher, in one. These whom you are cherishing —
which is right — caring for, looking after, trying
to help, are not just to be left there in their own
smugness, pleased with themselves and very happy that you
often go to see them and say some very nice and helpful
things to them. They have got to come to understanding
through the pastor and teacher. Thank God for all pastors
and teachers combined! I think we in fairness ought to
put it round the other way: that it can make people
top-heavy if it is all teaching without cherishing. The
two things must work both ways.

But when we have said
all this, what is the grand object, and what is the test
of ministry, test of anointing, test of function? It is
found in this: “Till we all attain unto...the
fulness of Christ”.

Every divinely-given
ministry is only for the purpose of bringing us to
completeness, and ultimately to the fulness of Christ. Is
it doing that? The point at which we arrive is a very
practical point for us all. It is not just to hear, to
listen to what is said to us, what is brought to us, by
these various means. It is not just to receive all that
they have got to give, stores and stores of it. The test
of those of us to whom ministry has come by various
instruments is: “Are we quite sure that this is
resulting in some increase of Christ in us?” That
will necessitate an attitude and an action. “The
Lord has spoken today. The Lord has said something today.
I am listening intently to this brother, this servant of
the Lord, to see what it is the Lord has to say, because
I am being involved in a great responsibility by having
ears at all. Now, if I can in the Spirit discern anything
that the Lord has said to me, I have to go straight away
to turn that into life, into character, into substance,
into history.”

I wonder how many of us
do go after a message and get before the Lord and say:
“Now, Lord, it is not good enough for me just to
have heard that. That may work only to my condemnation.
As you said: ‘The word that I spake, the same shall
judge him in the last day’ (John 12:48); that may
only be to my condemnation. There is no guarantee that my
hearing a lot of divine truth is going to result in my
spiritual measure being increased willy-nilly. I have got
to do something about it. I have got to take this to the
Lord and do something about it.”

You know how possible it
is for volumes and volumes to be given over the years,
and the resulting spiritual measure to be very small! One
says that reluctantly, but it is possible. The point is
that all these gifts are given for the perfecting of the
saints “unto the work of ministering, unto the
building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain
unto...the fulness of Christ”.

This is the essential
service. You are not called to office; you are called to
function. A lot of people are quite ready to begin to do
something if you will only put them into a uniform, or
put a badge on them, or call them by some title —
“missionary” or “reverend”, or
something like that. They will get busy about it then.
But...oh, no! That is not what is here. The Holy
Spirit through this apostle is speaking to the church
— “till we all”. And he is saying
that every one of the all has to increase in the
measure of Christ through ministries given, and have,
through that increase, something to give themselves, so
that it is possible for people who are in need of light
and life and help to say: “So-and-so has got
something — he has got something — she has got
something — those people have really got something
— and it is something vital. It is not just light as
such, but something vital. They count for something by
what they have.”

It must be like that.
This is the essential service.

Now just to refer to
Esther again. We mentioned how it worked out in the end
because she came, through grace, marvellous grace,
abounding grace, unto the riches, the wealth and the
glory of her marriage relationship with the king. The
whole nation derived the benefit and was saved from death
unto life. It is put in a rather quaint way at the end:
“The Jews had...a good day” (Esther
8:17). They kept the feast and they had “a good
day”! Oh, don’t the Lord’s people need
“a good day”! I trust we are having “a
good day” today, but surely we covet for all the
Lord’s people a good day in this sense of release,
deliverance, escape from the devices of the enemy, the
counsels of hell, the verdicts of death, and a coming
into all the good that Esther came into.

That is the need, the
really crying need. Perhaps we are here today with some
sense not only of that need but that this is really what
the Lord wants. I hope with all my heart that, as we are
here today and are speaking to one another, your hearts
are saying: “Now this is what the church needs. It
is what I need. This is it.” I wish it were like
that! I hope it is in some measure.

If you have that desire
and wish in your heart strongly enough — whenever
there is a message which comes through a messenger of the
Lord, an anointed messenger of the Lord, in whatever
capacity or function he may fulfil his ministry, and you
are listening and saying “What is the Lord saying
today? What is it that marks this time as from the
Lord?” and then “Imust do something
about that!” — that kind of attitude will bring
in spiritual measure, spiritual increase, spiritual
wealth, and lead on to the ultimate object of it all:
attaining “unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ”.

The Lord burden us, if
necessary, with this great sense of vocation. We are
called to the throne, we are called to marriage union
with the King, we are called to administer the resources
of His kingdom to His people, we are called now to
be ministers of Christ — yes, ministers of Christ!
And perhaps in a much more real and wonderful sense than
very often is attached to that word “minister”.
You can have the name, you can have the word, and it can
be used of people, but the Lord only knows what it means.
We are called to be a ministering church in every part.

Now, go and get to it
— get to the Lord about it! Say, “Iknow
I am nothing very much. I have not got very much life. I
don’t know very much. I am not very much good. But
the Lord has said this and I have got to do something
about it, small as I am, mean as I am, contemptible as I
am, worthless as I am — the Lord has said this to me,
and I am a part of His body, and His body is called upon
to be a ministering body in every part. I am in the body
and ‘that which every joint supplieth’. I have
got to be in this supply to other parts of the
body.”

The Lord help you really
to take that attitude and you will find in that way your
deliverance from so much. A lot of our trouble,
paralysis, confusion and whatnot is due to our being
turned in in a corporate introspection, occupied with
ourselves corporately, and with our problems. Oh, it is a
trick of the devil! We will say more about it presently,
but the Lord give us the great vision of Himself and our
calling and — blessed be God — of His
distribution!

If I were to add a word,
I would put it in this way. You do know that in the New
Testament times, in the beginning, when people really
came to the Lord and were saved and baptized, the
apostles did lay their hands upon them and pray
for them, and if you look into the matter you will find
that it was for this — that by the Holy Spirit they
should become functioning members of the body of Christ.
The Holy Spirit distributed gifts for functioning,
qualifying them to be functioning members. The Holy
Spirit does not recognise or accept any passengers in the
church of God. Is not every one, every single one, to be
a functioning member by the Holy Spirit, Who has been
given to us? And while that is a challenging statement
which may worry us a bit, remember, it is meant to show
us this: that the Lord has made provision for what He
requires. He really has, and we do know that the Holy
Spirit does help us in certain ways. We say, “This
is the way in which the Lord is with me. This is the way
in which the Spirit helps me. This is where I find the
Lord helping me.” Yes, He has distributed according
to His will, and it is for every one of us, by real
exercise, to find out what it is that we have to do and
contribute in the body of Christ. Don’t try to do
what someone else is doing, but get it from the Lord and
it will be right.